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S05E09: SUPER NOT COOL
Carlos impersonates a god. Averlyth kills a priest-dog. Nissa volunteers as sexual tribute. The gang learns that Lady Moneybags is funding this corruption of a religious ritual to trigger a famine to drive sales of Brawndo. They abduct the head priest and polymorph him into a dog. Averlyth disguises herself as the priest and sacrifices the priest/dog. The instant she does, Carlos bursts from the back room pretending to be Bront, enraged at the corruption of his temple. The priests and Lady Moneybags flee, convinced their ritual was a success. Background: The gang has discovered that the “archeologists” at the dig site were comprised of Drow guards (forced to drink a supplement called “Brawndo”), as well as priests preparing for what seems to be a serious ritual. Tl;dr Carlos now has a dog, Um is hiding in the main room after investigating, and Averlyth has abducted a junior priest. Session: The ruins appear to have been a functional church once upon a time, but have been ransacked by the intruders thus far. Um saw two of the guards taking all sorts of religious artifacts and packaging them up in the loot room (some sort of priest anti chamber). Each crate appears to be labeled with an address, although he’s not entirely able to read the text from there. The junior priest is following Averlyth into the altar room. She leads him to the far wall and pushes him through the tapestry - it rips the tapestry and Nissa jumps onto him. Carlos puts his hand over his mouth, and Nissa goes “keep quiet and you get to live” almost intimidatingly. Carlos: “I hogtie him and... hmm, what’s something humiliating I can put in his mouth.” Carlos shoves an apple in the guard's mouth and then puts the tapestry back up. Nissa casts Eagle’s Splendor on both herself and Carlos to prepare for the interrogation. Averlyth keeps her disguise up while Nissa and Carlos debate who gets to be good cop and bad cop. The priest gives Averlyth dirty looks during this time, thinking she’s just a traitor. Nissa starts interrogating him without ungagging him. Carlos puts his foot against the priest’s neck, threatening to stomp his neck if he doesn’t work with us. The junior priest agrees and then admits to working on a ritual when he’s able to talk again. Nissa steps in, criticizing the ritual in the ruins and the archeological impact on the place. The junior priest responds like he thinks he’s in the right. “It is our honor to serve Lady Moneybags. When she came and told us about the ritual she wanted us to perform, my brothers and sisters in the family couldn’t volunteer fast enough. I was lucky enough to be chosen to participate in the ritual.” Lady Moneybags is considered a high ranking member of his group, and had asked them for help with this ritual. Nissa asks what the ritual is about, saying the junior priest’s smart and should’ve been able to figure it out. He doesn’t know the details, but he has no doubt it will advance the interests of “He who sleeps”. Carlos questions what the ritual is for, what the dog is for. The priest points out that the villagers that used to live in these ruins would sacrifice fruits and harvest for the god of fertility, Bront. The current ritual is to anger Bront to the point of waking up and following her will. Nissa keeps questioning him -- he’s surprisingly excited to share the details of their plan! -- and he explains how they want to make Bront cause a famine. Averlyth questions when the ritual is set for, and learns it'll be at midnight. Carlos goes to re-gag the priest. Priest: “Wait-wait-wait-wait-wait!” Carlos: “What.” Priest: “Fuck you.” Carlos: “Thank you for your input.” Carlos re-gags the priest, bitch slaps him and then throws him on the pile of hog-tied victims. Stealing the Scroll Um sneaks down to bottom of the room, still behind the pews, to eavesdrop on Reverend Elvis and Lady Moneybags’s conversation. He hears similar info to what the rest of the group just got. Lady Moneybags doesn’t appear to be taking an active role in the operation, although she’s the one in the charge. The head priest is trying to figure out how to perform the operation, and she keeps asking stupid questions while he attempts to translate the old, old scroll of the rituals performed hundreds of years ago. One of the priests drops something and Um takes the chance to sneak back to the altar room to reconvene with the group in the kitchen. After significant planning, the group decides to create a distraction with bees. Um sneaks back out to the pews to wait along the side. Averlyth gingerly opens the jar of bees as Nissa uses the Ring of Grammarian to cast "Blow": a sudden wind pushes the swarm into the main room, towards the center. Two of the priests freak out and leave out the main door, and another two of the priests go to the loot chamber instead. Reverend Elvis runs out the main door yelling after the two priests that left that way, shouting about the encroaching deadline. Lady Moneybags executes a spectacularly weary sigh and follows him out the door. Um snags the scroll and throws some of the papers down onto the floor, trying to make as much of a mess as possible (to make it harder for the priests to realize the scroll is missing) and then goes back to the kitchen. Preparing to Hijack the Ritual The scroll does indeed describe an ancient fertility ritual. Nissa recognizes the document for what it is, because she’s seen many like it before -- ancient documents detailing ancient rites -- but she does not know how to read the language it’s written in. Averlyth is annoyed she can’t find Bane’s name anywhere. Eventually the two of them are able to decipher some of it, though they’re not confident in their translation and can’t read the entire thing. One piece that we’re positive about is the ritual requires someone having sex in the back room. (Nissa volunteers to be the sacrifice if necessary.) Um returns to hide behind the pews again because translating wasn't super interesting. This may or may not be the point where Nissa is starting to warm up to the idea of religion. Reverend Elvis gets up to go pee but doesn’t leave the room, he just goes in the corner. Then later, he actually leaves the room to get Brawndo. Nissa successfully polymorphs him into the same shape as Doctor Snuggleface while Carlos puts the leash on him. The group immediately panics, unsure of which dog was which. Nissa nicks the priest-dog’s ear and Carlos makes a dog tag for Doctor Snuggleface. The Fake Ritual with a Real Sacrifice Averlyth disguises herself as the head priest, then starts grumpily demanding everyone get started. The fake Reverend Elvis demands the dog be brought over to the main room, and someone questions why they aren’t sacrificing the dog in the altar room like they previously agreed. “Reverend Elvis” directs the dog to be tied down to the middle of the room. that she’s back in the main room, Averlyth is able to read that Moneybags' outfit’s text says “I really don’t care, do you?” Fake Reverend Elvis begins by shouting obscenities about Bront, and the priests are a little shocked at how sincere “Elvis” is about offending a God. Then, Averlyth executes the priest-dog with her personal sacrificial dagger and casts an orb of sunlight from the entrance of the Altar before disappearing into the stone below right after. The dog polymorphs back into the head priest after death. Carlos strolls in, backlit by the orb of sunlight, with Nissa’s air horns blasting along the way. “I AM... BRONT. YOU GUYS HAVE KILLED A DOG, WHICH IS SUPER NOT COOL. NOW I NOTICE SOME OF YOU HAVE MOVED AROUND THE ROOM, I NEED YOU TO GATHER TOGETHER FOR THIS NEXT PART. NOW, GET THE FUCK OUT”. Carlos creates a large cone of fear in the pentagram. All of the priests and guards flee, although Moneybags had already been on her way out as the ritual pr ogressed; she hadn’t seemed surprised at all that a God appeared. Aftermath Nissa goes to loot room and changes the addresses on the crates from Moneybags's personal mansion to Jefferson von Pantaloons’s name at the Department of Archaeology at the University of Waterdeep. ("They belong in a museum!") Nissa knocks on the ground a couple times to inform Averlyth that she can come out now. She misses the first couple knocks since Averlyth had been praying to Bane, dedicating that sacrifice to him and apologizing for not shouting his name like usual. Um emerges from the pews, feeling completely satisfied at his contribution to the day's adventure. The group calls the Archeologists to let them know to expect a shipment soon and that they can go back to the ruins soon. Jeff the intern is very confused as to why the group is being so familiar with him. The group calls Doug the Thug to pick up the three prisoners in the back so they can’t squeal, and forcibly conscript them into the mercenary army. The group is rewarded 500 gold pieces, and is pleased to have only killed one person in three missions. The group goes back to the field office to debrief, where the head of operations is very happy with them. Next time, they will take on another job: the potential emergence of the Forest Psalm.